A's projected for improvement in 2018

By Martin Gallegos, Bay Area News Group

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

The A’s are projected to win more games in 2018, but it might not be as many as fans are hoping for.

Baseball Prospectus released their PECOTA projections for all 30 Major League Baseball teams Wednesday morning. A 2018 finish of 77-85 is what the A’s are estimated to finish with, which would give them two-game improvement from last season.

77 wins would tie the Texas Rangers for last in the American League West, according to the projections. The Houston Astros are projected to finish with the best record in baseball at 99-63. The Seattle Mariners come in at 83-79, and the Los Angeles Angels at 80-82.

Of course, these projections can’t account for potential injuries that may occur throughout the season, or any potential offseason acquisitions. With a slew of premium free agents still available many teams could see a marked improvement from these projections. Perhaps even the A’s, should they land another quality starting pitcher or get a breakout season from an unexpected youngster.

That said, PECOTA was nearly spot-on with the A’s in 2017. The system predicted a 76-86 record, and they ended up going 75-87.

PECOTA is a sabermetric system that has been around since 2003. It is considered to be the most accurated projection system in all of sports. In addition to team projections, individual player projections were also released. According to those projections, expect the A’s to hit a bunch of home runs.

Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, and Khris Davis are all projected to hit over 30 home runs next season, Davis’ prognostication of 34 homers may be conservative, given his 40-plus output each of the past two seasons. Matt Joyce and Marcus Semien are expected to finish with 21 and 20, respectively.

The A’s downfall is expected to come with its starting pitching. While the A’s don’t even know who their fourth and fifth starters will be to enter the season, PECOTA lists the starting five as Kendall Graveman, Sean Manaea, Daniel Gossett, Jharel Cotton, and Andrew Triggs. Four of the five are projected to end with an ERA over 4.50, with Manaea just slightly under at 4.47.